St Patty's Day Minty Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

Though this is a bit outdated, I wanted to upload my lovely little St Patty's day cupcakes. I was debating on making chocolate stout cupcakes with either a ganache topping or an Irish Cream buttercream topping, but then was inspired by the festive green color of the holiday and decided to make a minty whipped cream topping instead.

I decided to bring these little babies to work, but didn't have a good way of transporting with the frosting on, so I kept the cake base and the frosting separate so I could "assemble" onsite. Except, I didn't have a proper piping bag, so I just stuffed the frosting into a piper, sandwich-bag style...which explains the texture of the whipped cream.



Minty Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, plus more for dusting finished cupcakes
2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch fine salt
1 bottle stout beer (recommended: Guinness)
1 stick butter, melted
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3/4 cup plain yogurt
3/4 to 1 cup heavy cream
1 (1-pound) box confectioners’ sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt.

In another medium mixing bowl, combine the stout, melted butter, and vanilla. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in sour cream until thoroughly combined and smooth. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.

Lightly grease 24 muffin tins. Divide the batter equally between muffin tins, filling each 3/4 full. Bake for about 12 minutes and then rotate the pans. Bake another 12 to 13 minutes until risen, nicely domed, and set in the middle but still soft and tender. Cool before turning out. If you decide to make mini-cupcakes, they only need to cook for ~15 minutes.

Minty Whipped Cream
1 C Heavy Whipping Cream
1 teaspoon Peppermint Extract (dependent on how minty you want it.. a little goes a long way!!)
1 Tablespoon powdered sugar
2 drops green food coloring

1. Pour whipping cream into the mixer and start the mixer on low and then turn to medium-high once bubbles start forming.
2. Keep mixer on medium-high while adding powdered sugar slowly.
3. Slowly add in Peppermint Extract... make sure not to dump too much at once or the flavor can be too overwhelming.
4. Once flavored, add the green food coloring one drop at a time until desired color is reached.
5. Keep an eye out during this entire process. The whipping cream will start getting stiff peaks and that is when you will need to stop. DO NOT OVERMIX! Or this mixture will turn into butter.

Add whipped cream to cupcake base and sprinkle a little green cake decoration to make it pop and voila! Serve and enjoy!!

Ginger.....cookies?

The event: Brut Sun Bowl.
The goodie: Dark, spicy Gingerbread

The goal was to bake a moist, dark, spicy gingerbread for the Brut Sun Bowl. Every winter, I get a huge craving for ginger in baked goodies. And what completes a cold winter day than gingerbread? So, I found a recipe off of Allrecipes and decided to go for it.

The first thing I noticed was the amount of molasses in the recipe: 1 whole cup! I'm not that big a fan of molasses...I find it a bit overbearing, but since the recipe was highly rated, I decided to go for it. After putting it in the oven, I set the time to what the recipe had suggested: 1 hr. Ok fine... it seemed a little long for the amount and the stickiness of the batter (1 9x9 square brownie pan), but I trusted the recipe and toiled on. About 45 min later, I went to check on my gingerbread. By now, I could smell the molasses wafting out of the kitchen. I opened the oven door, took out my pan, and poked at it. Rock solid. Crap.

In a moment of panic, I decided that I could just buy some gingerbread at Safeway and pass it off as my own. But I knew I couldn't make myself do that...and my ego was stopping me from it. Quickly, I changed plans to keep the ginger as the main ingredient and decided to fall back on a reliable choice: cookies! And voila! These big, soft, ginger cookies were born!

Might I say, that I think these turned out very well. So well, that, upon taking a bite, my friends were surprised that I had made them:

- Friend 1: These cookies are good! Did Ji make these?
- Friend 2: No, Penny did actually.
- Friend 1: Really??? Penny made these???

Don't worry. I wasn't offended. In fact, it gave my ego a giant boost after hearing that. So, hopefully these will bring you the same joy that it brought me and my friends on that cold Saturday afternoon.

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/4 teaspoon orange extract
• 1 teaspoon of orange zest

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.